Mind of its own, Plays random movies (LG TV)

[mr_d]

Been using Mezzmo on and off for several years, avoiding where I can due to this issue and have been putting up with it because I had alternatives such as android boxes with SMB shares.
Now I have recently bought a LG 75UK6500 TV and I want to use it exclusively as it requires absolutely no transcoding of any of my files, Meaning I have turned off transcoding and using Mezzmo simply as a library of sorts.

Now.
Initially I would use mezzmo on my Xbox one X, be watching something and the video would just stop at random times and return to the menu or just start a new video. I put up with it, seemed to be slightly better if I used the Android app as a remote, but would still happen on occasion.

With the LG tv EVERY time I start the TV it goes to whatever channel I was on last as expected but within a few seconds the video player will pop up and begin playing any random movie on my server (Never had the same movie play twice). exiting out and watching normal tv, you may go 20 minutes then suddenly the media player loads up and starts playing yet another random movie.
Watching a movie/TV show from the server and the video will stop at any given time and yet again start another random video.

I suspect it is Mezzmo because it appears the videos are being pushed to the TV, normally when I play a movie I browse the folder tree via the tv remote. If i want to stop the video and resume browsing there is an icon on the bottom left that puts me back into the folder tree where I left off.
However when these phantom videos play there is no option to return to any position in the folder tree as if I had gone to the computer and right clicked a file to "stream to...."

Watching a movie today it happened 3 times in 1 1/2 hours
I changed it back to normal tv and took a shower, came back and it was a minute into another random movie on Mezzmo. Seems it is pushing random videos and I dont know why. The fact it happens EVERY TIME the TV starts sure is fishy.

Please help, Mezzmo has been great otherwise.
To be clear this has happened on xbox and TV though to a lesser degree on xbox, but enough to make me avoid using it.

Thanks.

[ftanner]

Been using Mezzmo on and off for several years, avoiding where I can due to this issue and have been putting up with it because I had alternatives such as android boxes with SMB shares.
Now I have recently bought a LG 75UK6500 TV and I want to use it exclusively as it requires absolutely no transcoding of any of my files, Meaning I have turned off transcoding and using Mezzmo simply as a library of sorts.

Now.
Initially I would use mezzmo on my Xbox one X, be watching something and the video would just stop at random times and return to the menu or just start a new video. I put up with it, seemed to be slightly better if I used the Android app as a remote, but would still happen on occasion.

With the LG tv EVERY time I start the TV it goes to whatever channel I was on last as expected but within a few seconds the video player will pop up and begin playing any random movie on my server (Never had the same movie play twice). exiting out and watching normal tv, you may go 20 minutes then suddenly the media player loads up and starts playing yet another random movie.
Watching a movie/TV show from the server and the video will stop at any given time and yet again start another random video.

I suspect it is Mezzmo because it appears the videos are being pushed to the TV, normally when I play a movie I browse the folder tree via the tv remote. If i want to stop the video and resume browsing there is an icon on the bottom left that puts me back into the folder tree where I left off.
However when these phantom videos play there is no option to return to any position in the folder tree as if I had gone to the computer and right clicked a file to "stream to...."

Watching a movie today it happened 3 times in 1 1/2 hours
I changed it back to normal tv and took a shower, came back and it was a minute into another random movie on Mezzmo. Seems it is pushing random videos and I dont know why. The fact it happens EVERY TIME the TV starts sure is fishy.

Please help, Mezzmo has been great otherwise.
To be clear this has happened on xbox and TV though to a lesser degree on xbox, but enough to make me avoid using it.

Thanks.

That's strange. I have three LG TVs and none of them have ever done this. Mezzmo doesn't do push by default. The only way to really do push is the "Play To" option. The "Play To" option DOES support the LG TV, which I also know due to owning LG TVs. Have you checked to make sure that you are on the latest firmware for your TVs?

It feels to me as if you are getting some sort of "cross controls" where someone's remote control is running your TV, or someone is logged into your Mezzmo box and selecting "Play To".

[Peter]

Mezzmo will resume Play To when a TV is started if Play To was operating when the TV was turned off so this would explain why it starts happening when the TV is turned on. Please try exiting the Mezzmo application on your PC and this will clear the Play To playlist so that it will not keep playing files to the TV. When playing files to the TV a timer is set for the duration of the video, so if a file does not play then the next file will play after the duration of the video (if it was 1 hour long the next file will play after 1 hour).

[mr_d]

Mezzmo will resume Play To when a TV is started if Play To was operating when the TV was turned off so this would explain why it starts happening when the TV is turned on. Please try exiting the Mezzmo application on your PC and this will clear the Play To playlist so that it will not keep playing files to the TV. When playing files to the TV a timer is set for the duration of the video, so if a file does not play then the next file will play after the duration of the video (if it was 1 hour long the next file will play after 1 hour).

Sounds like a fit. How does it explain the randomness of the videos though? I have thousands of movies/TV shows in Mezzmo and none that play automatically are movies that I watched recently or tried to watch at any time since I last installed the software.
I can say with absolute certainty that no one else has control internally or externally. My wife doesnt use it and I have NIS and Malwarebytes antimalware giving clear readings.
I will reboot the server now and I have removed the app from my phone. I will edit this and report back shortly.
Thanks for the advice.

Edit:

TV turns on as normal now, I saw that the play to windows was all clear when i rebooted and has stayed that way since.
I will continue to play through movies and see if it returns somehow.

Im curious, if this is the cause then it means "play to..." overrides the latter command of browse file and click within the tv? isnt this kind of backward? surely if you have done a "play to..." followed by stop and select new file you would not want to return over and over to some random "play to...." playlist?
Shouldnt "play to..." be a single instance that once overridden it goes away?

I hope that is all the issue was as now I know about its behaviour I can prevent it from happening again.

Does the mezzmo android app utilize "play to..." or is it something more akin to file browsing?

Thanks for what seems to be the fix and I will report back in a few days regarding any re-occurrences.

[Peter]

Play To can override the browse file and click on the TV with the remote because the play to commands are received via the network. Some TVs will prompt you with something like 'Device xx wants to play a file' but most will just play the file.
The Mezzmo Android app uses play to so if you have the TV set as the device and select a file in the app then the app will tell the TV to play it.

[mr_d]

Ok thanks for the info. Been playing a few movies and so far no issues. That must have been the problem all along.
WOW if i found this out years ago I would have used it a lot more.
There were so many times where I would play a movie only to have it constantly interrupted by other random movies. Then it becomes unresponsive at times leaving me no choice but to go to the server and select play to.... now it all makes sense.
Im surprised more people dont have this issue as it was suuuuper annoying for me (I just assumes it was my hardware).

Still thanks for the help. Super happy now that I have trouble free streaming after these years.

[ftanner]

Mezzmo will resume Play To when a TV is started if Play To was operating when the TV was turned off so this would explain why it starts happening when the TV is turned on. Please try exiting the Mezzmo application on your PC and this will clear the Play To playlist so that it will not keep playing files to the TV. When playing files to the TV a timer is set for the duration of the video, so if a file does not play then the next file will play after the duration of the video (if it was 1 hour long the next file will play after 1 hour).

So I was experimenting around trying to reproduce the original issue. I was able to reproduce it. I would recommend, somehow, making stop mean stop. So that if you hit Stop on the TV, it also clear the PlayTo for that TV.

[Peter]

Unfortunately when the stop button is pressed on the remote Mezzmo does not get any feedback to allow us to clear Play To when this is pressed. Stop must be pressed in the Mezzmo application so that the timer is reset and the next video is not played.

[ftanner]

Unfortunately when the stop button is pressed on the remote Mezzmo does not get any feedback to allow us to clear Play To when this is pressed. Stop must be pressed in the Mezzmo application so that the timer is reset and the next video is not played.

Makes sense. My LG TVs don't have a Mezzmo app, so it doesn't get that stop back. The DLNA standard should have included bi-directional communications....hehehe